Comrade Leila Khaled, member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine met with Nicaraguan president and Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in November 2010 in a visit to the Republic of Nicaragua. Comrade Khaled was welcomed to Nicaragua with a series of meetings with President Ortega and a number of ministers and advisors.

She discussed the current situation in Palestine, as well as the position of the PFLP on current developments, particularly the need to end internal Palestinian division, and to end the useless “negotiations” under U.S. authority. She also emphasized the need to end the dangerous and futile negotiations and instead build Palestinian national unity. She said that Israeli crimes – including settlement-building, the siege on Gaza and the imprisonment of thousands of political prisoners – can be met only with unity and all forms of resistance. Furthermore, Comrade Khaled stressed that the key to the solution for Palestine is the return of Palestinian refugees and the complete end of occupation.

Comrade Khaled praised Nicaragua’s actions in cutting off its relations with Israel during the war on Gaza. President Ortega expressed his full support for the struggle of the Palestinian people for their legitimate rights and expressed that Nicaragua would continue to provide political support in international forums. He emphasized the long and close relationship between the Sandinista Front and the PFLP and their continuing support of the PFLP, saying that the Nicaraguan people would never forget the PFLP’s support for the revolution against the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s, and praised the PFLP leaders and cadres, particularly the imprisoned general secretary, Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat.

Comrade Khaled and President Ortega spoke at length about the relationship of the PFLP and the Sandinista National Liberation Front since the 1970s, including the martyrdom of Comrade Patrick Arguello, a Nicaraguan revolutionary who was killed in a PFLP operation which he engaged in alongside Comrade Khaled, hijacking an Israeli El Al plane. Comrade Khaled gave President Ortega a poster of the martyr Arguello, produced on the 40th anniversary of his death by the PFLP.